Delores Davis of Rock Hill, S.C. sits with her granddaughter, Mariah Davis , 5, as they wait for her son (and father of Mariah), Chief Petty Officer Larry Davis, Jr. to arrive after a 7-month deployment.

Ashland returns with a story to tell: Pirates

Petty Officer 2nd Class Justin Myers of Virginia Beach was on watch in April when pirates fired on the Ashland from a small skiff.

Bill Tiernan| The Virginian-Pilotbill.tiernan@pilotonline.com

Scott Curtis, Commanding Officer of the amphibious dock landing ship Ashland, as he talks about the ship's 7 month deployment and events in April when the ship was attacked by pirates.

Bill Tiernan| The Virginian-Pilotbill.tiernan@pilotonline.com

Delores Davis of Rock Hill, S.C. sits with her granddaughter, Mariah Davis , 5, as they wait for her son (and father of Mariah), Chief Petty Officer Larry Davis, Jr. to arrive after a 7-month deployment.

Bill Tiernan| The Virginian-Pilotbill.tiernan@pilotonline.com

Crew members of the amphibious dock landing ship Ashland search for family members from the deck.

It wasn't cannon fire that alerted the Ashland's crew on April 10 that they were under attack by suspected Somali pirates.

Nor was it a major explosion that burst through the early morning hours that day, said Petty Officer 2nd Class Justin Myers, a gunner's mate.

"We heard bullets clinking on the side of the ship," Myers said. "My first thought was, 'This is what I've been training for.' It was a reality check. This really happens."

Myers and the rest of the Ashland's 291-member crew celebrated their homecoming Sunday when the amphibious dock landing ship returned to its port at Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek in Virginia Beach.

And did they have a tale to tell.

Few Navy vessels have been attacked by Somalis since at least the 1800s - making the Ashland a rare ship to have a brush with piracy. Mostly, pirates have preyed on merchant ships, capturing and ransoming them for sums that have totaled millions of dollars.

This time they picked the wrong boat.

A crew member on lookout first spotted the skiff, said Cmdr. Scott Curtis, the ship's commanding officer. Somali pirates like to approach their target ships in the dark, then try to board them when dawn breaks, he said.

True to form, the skiff crept up on the Ashland and was spotted at about 5 a.m. The green boat was only about 25 feet long and 4 feet wide, said Lt. Brent Holloway, the Ashland's auxiliaries officer.

But its inhabitants were armed. Wielding automatic AK-47 assault rifles, they fired.

Their bullets didn't do much damage.

"When I first heard the shots, I thought there was an electrical problem," Holloway said. "Once I saw them with my own eyes, I said, 'Now it's really happening.' "

The Ashland took action. Myers fired two shots from a 25 mm machine gun, setting the skiff on fire.

The seven Somalis jumped overboard and one was killed, said Lt. Cmdr. Jim Krohne, a Navy spokesman. With a rescue crew, Myers sailed out to pull them from the water. They were dirty, malnourished and burned from the fire, and they went back to the Ashland without a struggle, he said.

"At that point, it quickly transitioned into a rescue mission," Curtis said. "We brought them on board, gave them medical care. I remember my medical officer came up and said, 'How do we treat them?' And my response was, 'Treat them like a member of the crew.' "

Meanwhile, word of the attack spread fast back home among the family and friends of Ashland sailors. Reactions ranged from fear for the crew's safety to incredulity that suspected pirates would dare fire on a massive Navy ship.

"I was like, 'What? They still do that?' " said Amy Washburn, who waited early Sunday at Little Creek for the husband of her best friend, Kristin Parkhurst.

"It was a little scary for me," said Parkhurst, who carried a sign Sunday that read "Surrender the Booty."

The six Somalis are now in Norfolk awaiting trial. They have claimed they were ferrying refugees from Somalia to Yemen when they became lost at sea, and fired at the Ashland to get its attention.

Their trial date has been set for Oct. 19.

For now, the families of crew members on the Ashland - and the Mesa Verde and Nassau, which also came home Sunday to Hampton Roads - are glad it's over.

Stachia Johnfroe, who spent $350 on raffle tickets to win the honor of a first hug from a returning spouse, said she was terrified when she heard about the Somalis' attack.

"I was scared to death, worried. Every emotion rolled into one," she said. This was her husband's first deployment since they married two years ago. "This has been a long seven months."

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No name-calling, personal insults or threats. No attacks based on
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